Some of you have asked how I make my jewels glow when creating them in Photoshop. Here's a little tutorial. If you haven't read the first one on creating a jewel in Photoshop - it's in my gallery. I suggest you start there, then come back to this one. Hope you find it helpful.

Becuase the tool is an elipse, it only works well on eliptical objects. However, with a touch more effort you can work with other shapes as well. Basically for a highlight, duplicate the shape into a new layer and fill it with a light color. Shrink it slightly. Blur it some. And erase what you don't need.

For the glowing jewel, follow the same basic procedure. Start with a dark shape. Copy it into a new layer and make it a lighter color. Shrink it. Blur it so it blends. Keep adding lighter colors on top, blurring and blending until you have your jewel. Combine all these layers in to one layer that is your jewel.

Copy the combined jewel layer and set the layer underneath the jewel layer. Move it where you want the glow to be (as per the tutorial).

You can use any fractal program - Tierazon, ChaosPro, Chaoscope, Xaos, and there are tons more. The link above shows how to create the jewel. Then you just paste a fractal over the top of it, and set the layer blending mode to soft light.